Indy 500/Corvette Marriage Proposal on the Bricks

by Austin Dillman
(Indianapolis, IN)

Proposing on the Bricks

Engagement Session

The Ring!

Here's my proposal story!

Back in may, I noticed a customer of ours at Formstack was using our software to create online contest forms for the Indy 500 and it got me thinking about ways I could propose to Sheri. She’s a huge race fan, loves cars and we had gone to the Indy 500 the past couple of years. I wanted to come up with a unique way to propose to her that incorporated some of her biggest interests.

I contacted the Director of Digital Communications at Hare Chevrolet, the customer using our software, and asked if I could get involved in one of their events to propose to my girlfriend. He responded in minutes and was immediately on board. Receiving the go ahead from the owners, he secured an invite for their Corvette owners-only event where we’d get to go by police escort to the track, gave me a Corvette to drive for the weekend and helped me get permission to propose on the bricks at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

I had to have a cover story for all of this so I called Sheri one day at work and told her a client of ours gave my boss tickets to a Corvette event, but he couldn't make it. I also wrote a fake email explaining the event and had my boss send it to me so it'd look like it came from him. It mentioned that I would need to take the Flip camera to record some video so I could write a customer spotlight post for our blog and put up a video of it.

Sheri was under the impression that this was all for work and didn't have the slightest clue what was going on. She was just incredibly excited about getting to go to the event and didn't even know we'd get to drive a Corvette. I told her we’d be driving my Jeep and doubted they would let us on the track with it. I said we would most likely just meet everyone at the track for the dinner. She was still incredibly enthusiastic about it all and talked about it to her coworkers and friends during the two weeks leading up to the event.

Throughout the whole planning process, I really came to appreciate the tight-knit community we have here in Indianapolis. I sent a few emails to complete strangers hoping for a response, and within hours I was connected to executives at the IMS, Chevrolet, Andretti Green Racing, and even Sheri’s favorite driver, Tony Kanaan. It was amazing how excited everyone was to help out and go out of their way for someone they had never met.

I was even fortunate enough to be approached by the Vice President of Marketing at Chevrolet, Jim Campbell, during the event where he congratulated us and mentioned how they were talking about my proposal idea at dinner the night before. He was genuinely interested to hear about how it all happened and it was exciting to get to share it with him. Rather than give you the long story like I did with him, (as if this wasn’t long enough already!), you can see it for yourself in the video below. Spoiler alert – she said yes!

(ADMIN- Such a great proposal Sheri and Austin, I posted the video below - Great, great proposal story - and Congratulations!)

Comments for Indy 500/Corvette Marriage Proposal on the Bricks

I proposed my partner as you did. But the car was camaro. Black one. your ring looks so good and lovely. I thought it was a butterfly in that flower. It was awesome. Great going my friend. All the best.

Oct 14, 2010

Thanks!by: Austin

Thanks for sharing our story and for embedding the video on your site!

Oct 14, 2010

Amazing Marriage Proposalby: Stanley Leffew

Austin, your proposal was so enjoyable to watch. I believe us men need to give the lady in our life a story to tell. Sherri will have a nice one that she will speak about for years to come. That's the power of a great proposal.

I call these sort of things the SPIKE that brings SPARK to a relationship.

In volleyball terms, you have three primary actions to focus on. You have the "dig", the "setup", and the "spike". The dig part is the work the relationship requires. The setup part is how we go about establishing the foundation of our relationship. The spike part is the ceremonies we include, such as a great proposal story, a ceremony of the union (the Wedding), and all subsequent wedding anniversary celebrations.